Despite Everything, Duke Nukem Forever Was Profitable

@Crunchman said:

BUT AT WHAT COST?

Oh god........

Good?

Hey, I'd buy that for a dollar.

@weeman105: It's true that shipping 4 million and selling 4 million are different things. But even so shipping that many units to willing retailers is pretty darn impressive!

The joke stopped being funny as soon as the game came out and then Duke got to laugh at us. Everyone is confused. No one is safe!

So what made them end with a loss?

Also, they shipped 4 million copies of L.A. Noire. Shipping four million and retailers selling four million are two different things.

A little part of me died inside when I thought of the games who deserved sales far more than this %!#/(&#!)!#(!#?#" !%(#%&"#)(! !&#%!(#$.

Money spent "ironically" is still money.

geez if Duke can have his horrid release, why can't I have one for mechwarrior?  I don't care how "turd"y it is.  Serve it up and I'll eat it.

Always bet on Duke??

Play it on a PC. It's way more enjoyable, particularly if you're a fan of Duke 3D. All the smarmy, hate filled reviews were pathetic.

I'm glad DNF is turning a profit, here's hoping it's successful enough for Gearbox to invest time developing an ACTUAL Duke Nukem reboot. I'd be interested in seeing what a modern Duke is.

Keep in mind everything prior to 2006 or so was written off as a loss and closed. I bet if you included those numbers this is in the negative.

Its to bad the shitty console ports colored so many people on this game, the PC version is far better than it's console counterparts, not to say the game is great or even good it has serious problems but I had a good time playing it, a few choice scenes showed the potential underneath and don't even get me started on the "Rape" scene which everyone freaked out over and it turned out to be nothing we havent seen in alien movies FOR YEARs!

THIS IS WHY WE CAN'T HAVE NICE THINGS.

This is why we can't have nice things.

@SlashseveN303 said:

I can't imagine Duke Nukem being profitable if you take into account all it's years of development. Good for Gearbox though, getting that money so they can keep making better games, like Borderlands.

Of course, they could have just used the time they spent on DNF to concentrate on one of those better and more profitable games instead.

Gearbox aren't good enough to be considered in the very top tier of developers (Blizz, Valve, Rockstar etc.), but I think they have the potential to be in the next class down if they wanna be. I don't think following up their breakout hit (Borderlands) with a shitty, Frankenstein's monster of a game like DNF was smart at all, even if they didn't lose money on it.

So bad just everyone had to buy it. Except for a few, me included.

I think the tidbit about L.A. Noire is more interesting. How can you sell 4 million copies of a game and still run a loss?

Profitable for Take Two maybe. Taking the development as a whole? No chance. That's like saying 'APB was profitable' because the company that picked it up for next to nothing ended up making their money back. If you ignore the fact that they already burned up millions of dollars and sunk studios, then sure, these games are profitable.

Hail to the King, Baby!

@ADarkMatter said:

EDIT: Was Shadows of the Damned "profitable"? I mean Duke was just a bad joke and should have stayed like that, let the guy die already, and there are a bunch of better games out there that just won't sell as much as Duke Nukem Forever did; that's bad for the industry IMO.

Unfortunately, it's hard to say for a lot of reasons, primary being that we don't know the budget of the game. That said, Grasshopper historically makes their games for ridiculously fucking cheap (No More Heroes was a monstrous success for them at 125k in its first month in North America), so hopefully!

I doubt Duke made a profit on its entire development cost. My guess is that is made a profit based on the price that Gearbox acquired it for, the money that 2K had put into 3D Realms and the last year of development costs for Gearbox. I can't see it paying for the 14 years of development that 3D Realms funded themselves from sources such as the old Duke games, Prey and the finder's fee they got for Max Payne.

Time is money.

hahahahahaha I mean so many people got it for the sole purpose of seeing *how* bad it was

Fucking depressing.

On the other hand, I'm sure most of us only bought it to have it on the shelf. I own a copy, but only so I can own a copy. I have no intention of ever *EVER* playing it. I don't hate myself that much.

Mine's still in it's wrap. Maybe if I return it justice will prevail....

@Rawrnosaurous: Do you not think that Duke has a place in todays gaming world? I think they need to make another Duke game and have it ship on time to really find out.

Duke made money and Bulletstorm didn't. No justice in the world.

It just goes to show that no matter what the haters say.........
 
Always bet on Duke.

I like the cover art.

was Take Two actively funding the game during the entire development or was it mostly 3D Realms/George Broussard paying for it? I can't imagine this game actually made enough money to even cover 15 years worth of salary, let alone licensing multiple engines and everything else that goes into making a game. 
 
Being profitable for Take Two doesn't necessarily mean it made more money than what went into it.

@ADarkMatter said:

EDIT: Was Shadows of the Damned "profitable"? I mean Duke was just a bad joke and should have stayed like that, let the guy die already, and there are a bunch of better games out there that just won't sell as much as Duke Nukem Forever did; that's bad for the industry IMO.

After selling only 24k, how could it possibly be profitable? And how does a bad game making a profit hurt the industry? It gives devs/pubs more money to make better games. How is that a bad thing?

sad face.

I honestly wish it had tanked just so that I wouldn't have to deal with that character again. I mean it was great in the 90's but man not only is the character stuck in the past but so is the gameplay, can anyone actually try to imagine a duke game with a modern control scheme? Would you like to play a Duke Nukem game that has a cover mechanic and regenerating health? Active reload? QTE? No first person platforming? Gearbox is going to do it either way because they have been getting rather cocky with their games ever since borderlands was a big hit.

Sweet! Glad my Balls of Steel purchase was able to help.

:(

This......this just makes me sad.

Ugh.  Fuck you, Duke.  Fuck you.

Ofcourse it did! all they had to do was stable together the limbs and organs and sell it!

@unholyone123 said:

Fuck everyone who bought this game. Now you have no room to complain about the avalanche of shitty clone games that will come out. Do any of you realize the companies largely make games based around what you buy.

I bought it and make no apologies, I really enjoyed it. The PC Gamer review matches my own thoughts well, it's flawed but still really fun. I know the PC version was better in many respects, which might have something to do with it.

Fuck everyone who bought this game. Now you have no room to complain about the avalanche of shitty clone games that will come out. Do any of you realize the companies largely make games based around what you buy.

@SlashseveN303 said:

I can't imagine Duke Nukem being profitable if you take into account all it's years of development. Good for Gearbox though, getting that money so they can keep making better games, like Borderlands.

Wildly unprofitable if you consider the 10+ years of lost opportunity costs.

@ADarkMatter said:

EDIT: Was Shadows of the Damned "profitable"? I mean Duke was just a bad joke and should have stayed like that, let the guy die already, and there are a bunch of better games out there that just won't sell as much as Duke Nukem Forever did; that's bad for the industry IMO.

After selling only 24k, how could it possibly be profitable? And how does a bad game making a profit hurt the industry? It gives devs/pubs more money to make better games. How is that a bad thing?

@Bucketdeth said:

Hail to the King baby!